here we go
by fantasia of solace
Summary: i always knew we'd meet again one day. —cobra&angel, modern!au


**author's note** i'm not sorry. (oh, and you might want to check back for an update. i'm feeling the need to look over this and fix up some stuff that i've been trying to fix for a while now.)

**warning** this is a cobra/angel au. don't like, don't read. you have been warned. there are cussing too.

**pairing** cobra/angel, implied laxus/mira, implied sting/yukino/rogue

**disclaimer** applies

* * *

><p><em>because we were just meant to be,<em>

_i always knew we'd meet again one day_

**here we go**

_let's pick up from where we stopped_

_we'll finish the chapters together_

* * *

><p>He remembers that she loved making ceramic angels. She was always a good potter with skills that he could never hope to have.<p>

_"__Argh, damn it!" he curses as the pot falls apart, crashing onto the floor and forming a soft puddle of mud at his feet._

_Looking over her shoulder, she giggles and teases, "You're doing it all wrong, silly. That looks nothing like…well, whatever you're making." Then, gesturing proudly towards her newly formed angel, she says, "This is Barakiel. _This_ is what it should look like, not…" her nose scrunches up as she points at the pool of mud. "…that."_

"Stupid bitch," he mumbles, poking a hole through the paper with a flick of his finger. "Oi, is anyone close to getting a bingo yet?"

"I am," Richard declares, raising his hand.

"Damn," he mutters, staring at the numbers printed on the paper as another number is called. "Crap. I got a twenty-six, not a twenty-_seven_."

_Twenty-seven?_

"What month is it again?" he demands, absently glaring at his friends.

"March. Quit glaring," Sawyer answers, his mouth twisting into a frown while his finger hovers over one of the numbers next to a hole. "Come on, say eight…"

_Twenty-seven? March?_

His eyes widen in shock and he stands up abruptly, startling Macbeth who's right next to him. He's vaguely aware of their confusion, but his head is spinning too much for him to even bother. Throwing down the bingo sheet, he storms off, nearly knocking into someone.

_Apologies are overrated,_ he thinks to himself as he makes his way out of the tent and into the darkness of the night.

There's somewhere he needs to go.

.

He reaches the cliff before dawn. The waterfall is no longer as powerful as it was back in those years, though it still exists. He detects no human activity in the vicinity.

_She isn't coming._

It's just one of the possibilities, but he ignores it because he doesn't want to believe it. He sits on the closest rock and waits, waits for the Sun to rise.

_She'll come._

He cements this belief into his mind. The sky grows brighter soon but no one comes. Birds fly past but no human comes, though he wouldn't settle for just any human. It's her that he wants, nothing more or less.

A few hours past dawn ticks past and he decides that he should leave.

.

There's an unopened box that looks nothing like a parcel at his doorstep. His heart skips a beat for a moment before he recollects himself and picks it off the ground. There's a message left on his answering machine — a call from who though, he wonders. The speaker sounds like Macbeth.

_"__Idiot, why the heck did you leave in the middle of the festival? You didn't even finish your bingo! Oh yeah, Erigor came when you left. He said you bumped into him, but figured you were probably thinking something like 'apologies are overrated'—"_

Surprise.

_"—__which is quite true. They wouldn't let him start late, so he picked up where you left off. The parcel's your prize. You actually won, you know. A few numbers after you left, he got the third number, then the fourth, and nothing until the last number they called turned out to be the number you needed to win. That was just messed up, man. Anyways, I'm not going to bother you anymore. Bye. Oh yeah, it's Macbeth."_

His heart plummets a few storeys before he reminds himself that she has no reason to turn up at his doorstep with a present for him. It's the wrong way around anyway, since it isn't any special occasion for him.

The parcel is enticing, as much as he wants to throw it away in the room where he keeps all his junk. It's probably one of those cheap prizes the organisers get from little convenience stores around town.

God, it's calling to him. He can practically hear it calling his name, beckoning for him to open it. God, he's _hallucinating! _So he relents and opens up the parcel, fold by fold. The prize, as expected, is nothing flashy. His fingers reach for it. It's soft and hard at the same time.

The prize is wrapped in foam. Looking through the foam, he has a brief idea of what it is.

_It's perfect._

If she won't come to him, then he'll go to her. Promises were always overrated. What was he thinking earlier?

He allows himself a little smile — it's more of a smirk, really — as he unwraps it and admires it, although he knows that compared to what she was capable of, it's rubbish. She might not appreciate the general object, but she ought to understand the message he's trying to send through, right? She's not dense, after all.

It's a porcelain angel.

.

It baffles everyone when he turns down Jackpot's 'random party of the month' invitation. When someone — he can't remember who — calls to ask, he lists off the plain reasons why he decides not to go: useless, uninteresting, a waste of time, stupid, and anything he can think off.

He leaves out _'I'm busy'_ intentionally though.

It's not like anyone will think he's acting odd though, because his reasons are pretty much agreed on by everyone else — usually, they just go to Jackpot's parties for the sake of it.

.

"Are you free tonight?" her voice is as pleasant as usual, but somehow he doesn't feel comforted by it as he shoves his hands into his coat pockets, fingers wrapped around the train ticket inside as he balances the phone between his shoulder and ear.

"No," he replies. "I'm going to Jackpot's party."

"Oh." She sounds surprised. "I…never thought you were one for parties."

"Yeah, surprise," he rolls his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Eh, I'll see you another time." He hangs up without a goodbye as always, because he's never been one for pleasantries — none of them, honestly, so that's why they click together.

As he locks his front door (though he's not the least afraid that someone might try and break in), a little guilt rises inside him but he pushes it away, pushes it to someplace where it means nothing, where he'll forget about it one day. There is no room for second thoughts or regret now.

A light rain starts falling as he heads towards the train station. He wonders if she's crying.

.

She sits down with a sigh, putting down the phone as she stares at her dress. Sometimes, she wishes he wouldn't be so rude to her. She's used to having good mannerisms — or at least, the minimum requirements — after all. His manners would put even Natsu to shame.

_He's only going to a party right? Nothing to be worried about._

_Keep telling yourself that, _a voice somewhere in her mind laughs cruelly.

Still, she frets and frets, her stomach feeling queasy. There's an uneasy, unsettling feeling about this whole shebang, if it's even the right word. There isn't even anything going on to begin with.

_I'm imagining things_ doesn't help make her feel better as she tries to occupy herself with cooking and chatting on the phone with Laki, who is supposedly trying to keep the Trimens at bay while on a mission — helping the townsfolk with some carpentry work, no doubt — near the Blue Pegasus guild building.

_"—__and that Ren, doesn't he have Sherry? Why the heck is he still flirt_—hello? _Hey, are you listening? Hello?"_

"Ah," she blinks, realising that she's been spacing out for the last few moments of their conversation. It would be rude to ignore Laki. "I'm sorry, I was preoccupied with something. I beg your pardon?"

She hears Laki sigh in irritation and begin her rant all over. Her eyes wander to the window amidst her friend's talking as the rain gradually falls from the sky, pelting onto the glass. It reminds her of Juvia, who will no doubt be going _"Drip, drip, drop"_ as of this moment.

There's a photograph hanging by the window. It's a picture of them, when they were happy. It seems like an eternity ago since they had met. She's heard tales of his friends from him, and she's told him lots about hers too.

Somewhere between the lines, she starts to see his image fading away from her, and the worst part was that his back was turned.

.

_This town is shabby_ is the first thing that comes to mind when he arrives. It's almost too shabby for his taste — which means it wouldn't qualify for her either, since she has higher standards than him. It's things like this that makes him wonder what she's thinking right now.

_"__Tasteless."_

The town is as far as he's heard of her whereabouts. The rest is up to pure luck, he decides as he walks around aimlessly, hoping to find her.

Finding her isn't as easy as it seems when you have no clue where she is, or if she's even in the town anymore.

.

He doesn't find her in the end.

.

He returns home that night, feeling very weary as he drags himself into his room, ignoring the fact that he has several missed calls from God-knows-who. He slams the door shut and falls onto his bed, refusing to cry, because _he just won't._

Fatigue overtakes him eventually and he drifts off into his dreams, where he knows he'll find her, because he always does.

.

It's ten in the morning and there's some madman banging on his door noisily while he's trying to get some sleep, turning and tossing restlessly in bed. Damn his excellent hearing, which basically amplifies the already loud noise by…how many times? _If this person fucking knows him, can't they be more sensitive?_

"Coming, coming," he yells before grumbling under his breath as he reluctantly gets off the bed — incidentally realising that he's still in the same attire he wore to look for her yesterday — and goes to open the door. "What—"

_"__What the hell!"_ the person beats him to the punch — probably because he's still half-asleep — and greets him with a loud shout that nearly bursts his eardrums.

"Ouch, keep it down," he grunts, glaring at the _very_ rude visitor, who happens to be his cousin Gajeel. "What do you want?"

Gajeel is fuming, _absolutely fuming._ You can practically see the steam rising from his ears as he growls at him and demands, "Hurry up and get to the hospital, Wendy's old man is—"

"On my way, on my way," he interjects, slipping on his shoes as he locks the door and brushes past the bulkier guy.

.

He heaves a sigh as he steps out of the hospital. Hell is over — for now. It's harder on the poor girl, he reminds himself as he watches Sting flag down a taxi while looking back at the entrance anxiously, presumably waiting for Natsu and Wendy.

"I'll be leaving first," Laxus announces abruptly from behind him and he stiffens before nodding. "Call me if there's any problem."

"No one's stopping you."

The blond grunts and walks away from the little group gathered in front of the hospital just as Natsu emerges with a sobbing Wendy in his arms. His heart aches a little as he thinks bitterly, _Good for her._ At least there's a conclusion to her tale with her foster father.

Somewhere along the line, he realises that he's jealous because there isn't any closure for their story yet.

.

He really should've gone home, but he ends up walking around town for the rest of the day instead. Lunch, he usually cooks, but he doesn't feel like going back yet so he opts for some ramen store and gets the best thing he can buy at the vending machine with what little money he has in his coat pockets.

Dinner becomes the same thing, but simply bought at a different store. After eating, he doesn't quite know what to do except go home. He's walked around the whole town for most of the day and there's nothing left for him to see.

When he steps into his house, he decides to check the answering machine. There are too many messages left by the same number for him to count.

_Hey. That looks familiar,_ he rubs his chin thoughtfully as he punches in the number into his phone — which he _never_ brings when he goes out, since he never wanted it and it was forced on him in the first place by Sawyer — before waiting for someone to pick up the phone.

_"__Hello? Why didn't you pick up any of my calls?"_

"Busy," he answers gruffly, sinking into his couch. "Wendy's old man was in the hospital dying."

There's a pause on the other end of the phone before she apologises, _"Oh. I'm sorry for her loss. I think I'll talk to her personally if I see her around next time. She does live in Magnolia too."_

"Yeah, yeah," he rolls his eyes in annoyance as his eyes flicker across the bare room, lingering on the box that sits on the highest shelf for a moment too long. "What did you want?"

_"…__I called Jackpot."_

"You did?" _Shit._ "So?" he feigns ignorance and acts nonchalant, secretly thankful for the fact that she can't see him then, so it's easier to maintain his indifferent façade.

_"__He said you didn't come to the party. He said Imitatia called to invite you but you turned her down…with a long list of reasons."_

_Damn Imitatia and Klodoa_, he thought, taking a packet of instant noodles and a pair of wooden chopsticks which he can't quite remember where he got it from. He starts cooking without neglecting the fact that she's still on the phone.

_"__Are you still there, E—"_

"Get to the point, damn it."

_"…__where did you go then?"_

"Why do I have to tell you?" he's getting panicky and he knows it, though he's doing an incredible job of toning down the panic in his voice. "You're not the boss of me, woman." God, he's turning into Gajeel, not that they've never been alike before — he's just a lot calmer.

There's a long period of silence which he dismisses, picking up the sound of her breathing over the phone while focusing on his noodles. When he's done cooking, he snaps the chopsticks apart and starts eating.

_"__You haven't let her go."_

He stops so suddenly that he nearly chokes but he regains his composure and continues shovelling the noodles into his mouth without responding.

_"__Why?"_

"Because," he answers simply before hanging up and throwing the damn phone in one corner of the room.

After he's done eating his supper — _that's a first —_ he decides to go straight to bed, not wanting to put up with anyone calling him. He clearly remembers seeing several more numbers listed earlier, and he has a pretty good idea of who they are. She tries to call back several times, but he lets the phone ring all it wants in a forgotten corner of the house _(oh, Sawyer will be mad when he gets wind of the news and has to buy him a new phone)._

He doesn't manage to fall asleep as fast as he wishes he would.

.

_They haven't been granted the best life._

_When they were very young, the society is messed up. His parents having died in some terrorist attack which he miraculously survived, he spends most of his life in the orphanage until a strange man comes by one day._

_This man has weird tattoos on his face._

_This man picks out not one, but _five_ children — and he's included. He looks at his companions and feels a little too awkward, because he's definitely seen them around often but none of them have really interacted. The group is made up of four boys and only one girl — he wonders if the girl feels even more awkward._

_Her gaze flickers to the boys on her left as they wait for the man to fill out the paperwork inside the office, and her eyes finally stop at him._

_ "__H-hello. What's your name?" she asks hesitantly, cracking a small smile._

_He finds it incredibly stupid, yet charming._

_ "__Erik."_

_ "__Nice to meet you, Erik. I'm Sorano."_

_._

_What do I do?_ he muses, staring up at the cracks in his ceiling as if she's there looking down at him, smiling and laughing with that malicious edge to it that _he just fucking loves_, teasing him mercilessly about his figurines even when he's stamping his feet furiously_._

She's still somewhere out there, he knows. He just hasn't found her yet, and he will.

.

When he wakes up, he has a massive headache and decides to stay home despite today being one of Jackpot's regular 'let's-get-together!' days. _At least I have a valid reason this time,_ he thinks drearily as he reaches for his _house_ phone — _house_, not _mobile_ — after taking some painkillers.

_"__Hello?"_

"Oi, Grim Reaper. Tell Jackpot I'm not coming to his stupid gathering thing."

_"…__if I recall correctly, you were busy the last time…and you lied to Kinana. You aren't thinking of the same thing again, are you?"_

"I've got a _headache_, idiot," he hisses, massaging the sides of his forehead as he tries to ignore the dull throbbing.

_"…__oh. Taken painkillers?"_

"Just did, before calling you. So, just tell Jackpot I ain't coming," he says before hitting a button to hang up and flopping onto his couch. "Damn headache…"

.

_"__These two are Shamsiel and Raguel. They're my personal favourites!" she smirked proudly as he looked at the two figurines with wide eyes. "Raguel especially, he took such a long time to make!"_

_ "__Well, his design _is _rather complicated," he pointed out, turning his gaze back to her._

_ "__And of course, _I_ masterfully made him from scratch out of clay," she reminded arrogantly. "I'm a genius, aren't I?"_

_ "__Ha ha," he laughs drily, earning him a poke in the stomach. "Ouch. Quit being so rough."_

_She rolls her eyes. "Oh, like _you_ aren't."_

_._

_ "__Hey! I won! I won!" she cheers, jumping up and down in excitement as he watches in amusement. "I can't believe it, though obviously my skills are much better than the rest." She squeals again and he shakes his head, snorting._

_ "__Yeah, yeah, chill. Congratulations though," he nods approvingly. "Taking all that time to make…um, Raguel, was it? Yeah, it was definitely worth it."_

_She sticks a tongue out at him and teases, "Oh, as if you did anything to help."_

_ "__Maybe I did," he crosses his arm, a light smirk on his face._

_._

_ "…__promise me something?"_

_He raises an eyebrow._

_ "__What?"_

_Her eyes dart to the sunset._

_ "__If I leave this town, I'll come back on my birthday. To celebrate with you. Come and see me at this cliff." She tries to hide the fact that she really wants him to make this promise, and the silliness of it makes him laugh._

_ "__Of course."_

_._

_ "__Um, excuse me? Uh—I just thought you should know this…about, um, my sister. D-did you hear? She's dating this guy from…"_

_He slams the phone down, trembling. It's a lie, he tells himself._

_He's horrible at lying to himself._

_._

_The same person — he doesn't bother to remember who — calls again a few months later, sounding not quite as timid as before. Apparently, someone must have warned her about his lack of manners because she doesn't seem the least bothered that he fails to greet her like any normal person would._

_ "__They broke up."_

_Her voice is flat and completely drained of any emotion, without a hint of humour. He knows she's not joking with him. In fact, he's actually a little overjoyed to hear that._

_ "__You can expect a call from her."_

_She treats him the same way he treats her, and he lets himself smile a little again for the first time in years._

_._

_Her call comes just a few minutes before midnight. He honestly doesn't know what to expect, because she's always full of confidence and arrogance and — and it just isn't like her to be a wreck, to cry and despair, pour her soul out._

_He doesn't know what to say and lets her talk. His heart sinks a little, because this means she was so sure about this relationship, that this wasn't one of those flings she has had previously, where they mean nothing to here. Now he wishes she was laughing, mocking the guy's stupidity._

_She's perceptive, he knows, so he inserts little comments in between where he feels its appropriate, to let her know he's listening (though she knows he always is) and to convince her that he's sorry for her._

_He isn't the least._

_._

He wakes up with a start, drenched in cold sweat.

_No. Not this._

He shakes his head violently and rubs his bleary eyes before taking a glance at the clock. It's only four in the morning. Sighing, he falls onto his bed heavily again, ignoring the crumpled bedsheets that lay messily below his feet, just a few inches from falling off the bed.

A few minutes later, he can't stand it and drags himself out of bed to take a run.

_If Sawyer can go for a run at two, why can't I do the same at four?_

_._

_This man's house doesn't seem to be able to fit five children, he thinks when they first arrive in front of their new lodgings. This man — Brain, he calls himself — is rather talkative and talks throughout the drive to his house._

_He's mostly preoccupied with squeezing as much as he can towards the left side of the car and doesn't remember what Brain says._

_Brain proves his thoughts wrong though when he shows them their room._

_ "…__wait a minute, this Angel chick is going to sleep in the same room as us?" the pointy-nosed guy queries, eyes widening in shock. "She's a girl!"_

_ "__Deal with it, unless you boys would like to sleep in the living room and give this whole room to her," Brain replies smugly, walking out of the room. "Get your things unpacked. If you need any help, call me. Once you're done, you can take a shower or get something to eat. I'll be in the kitchen cooking our dinner."_

_It's awkwardly silent once Brain leaves._

_It's also then when he realises that Mister Thick Eyelashes has been sleeping throughout the whole thing._

_ "__Come on, let's get our things unpacked. I'm taking this bed," she claims the mattress closest to the window for herself, dragging her small amount of luggage over._

_ "__I'll take this one," he hastily picks the one nearest to her and starts unpacking._

_While the other three — or two, since one of them is technically sleeping — sort out their sleeping arrangement, he hears her hum lightly and tease, "Aw, how sweet. You decided to choose the bed closest to me?"_

_ "__Don't flatter yourself. If I didn't, we were going to take forever to choose."_

_ "__Say, what happened to your parents?"_

_ "__Killed in some terrorist attack when I was really young. I don't remember how I survived. All I know is that the authorities found me after the attack, when they were checking out the area. You?"_

_ "__You know how popular child labour is these days, right?" he nods. "Yeah, there were this bunch of people in my village desperate for workers, I think. Their shop really wasn't that popular but apparently they were just…well, _desperate_ and started shooting the people in our village. My parents died and I covered for my sister; let her get away. I got caught along with a few other children, but the carriage we were travelling in was stopped halfway by the authorities. You get the idea of what happened next."_

_ "__I honestly don't know if that should be a good or bad thing."_

_She chuckles._

_ "__That's so true."_

_._

Shaking the hair out of his eyes, he takes a deep shaky breath as he slows down into a jog, passing by an elderly couple that's strolling by leisurely. He runs past the dim glow of the street lamp and over the stone bridge, concentrating on the light taps of his feet against the ground.

He knows he's just trying to distract himself.

His eyes flicker to the path ahead and he takes a left turn, brushing past a girl that bears a striking resemblance to—

He stops abruptly and his eyes widen. He know she does too when he doesn't hear her footsteps, and they turn unanimously. There is cold judgement in her eyes — it's a little different from _her_, but it's still there all the same — as she stares him down. Unconsciously, he realises she's looking at the scar over his left eye.

"You, you're the guy I talked to," she points out, holding up two fingers. "Twice."

"It was the scar, wasn't it?" he mutters, glaring at the ground distastefully. "Tch."

She dips her head lower before looking up and gesturing to the bench to her right, by the side of the path they're standing on. Seeing his ignorance, she sits down on her own and he leans against the lamppost languidly, breathing in and out.

After a while of staring at her laps, she speaks up.

"She moved out. I haven't contacted her in a while. Said—"

She stops herself, as if knowing that he knows. He listens to the awkward silence as his breathing steadies and he folds his arms across his chest.

"So?"

_They're alike in more than one way,_ he thinks as he watches her take her time raising her head. Her gaze burns into his, and he's suddenly plagued with memories of _her_. He doesn't want this. He wants to snap at her, to make her go away—

—but he _can't_. All of a sudden, he's tired and he just can't do anything but stand there and wait for her to say whatever she wants to say.

"Don't pretend." Her words are harsh all of a sudden. "I can see through your lies."

Standing up, she gives him one last look before breaking into a run, huffing and puffing as she turns down the path he came from.

_Liar, liar, liar,_ he scolds her mentally.

But who's the real liar — him or her?

.

He reaches home just in time for breakfast and he devours it as fast as he can. When he almost chokes, he grimaces, body convulsing as coughs wrack his body for a few moments. After gulping down a few glasses of water, he sighs in relief and slumps in his chair, his eyes wandering around his house again.

_I should really stop this habit,_ he thinks grimly, gritting his teeth as they come to a stop at the box on the shelf. Eventually he succumbs to his unusual desire and takes the box off the shelf to admire the porcelain angel.

_It's not as good as hers. Why do I even want to see this fucking horrible—_

His fingers nearly let go of the box when he finds that it's oddly light. His heart starts thumping a little faster than it ought to as he frantically places it on the table and starts to lift open the thin cardboard flaps.

The box is empty.

The porcelain angel is gone.

.

The first thing that comes to mind is to call up — no, _barge straight into each and every one of their houses _— his friends and beat them up until they return him the porcelain angel. His anger subsides in a few moments as he realises that that's not going to work.

The house phone rings and he grumbles noisily, marching over to the phone.

"What?"

_"__You're supposed to say 'hello'."_

"Screw manners," he retorts. "It's overrated."

_"__It's called being polite…"_ He can tell she's trying to hold back a sigh and snickers. _"Now, now. What's the matter?"_

"Something's missing from my house," he explains vaguely.

_"…__oh. It's t-the angel, isn't it? I—I'm sorry. T-the other day, when I was cleaning your house, I—I saw it and I thought you wouldn't need it s-so I threw it—"_

He raises an eyebrow before her words start sinking in, and when he does, the phone in his hand ricochets across the living room, bouncing off the walls streaked with evidence of cracked paint. Her apologies fade away when something — some object — hits the disconnect button.

Then, he makes his way to the nearest art-and-craft shop.

.

_He comes to learn that she likes pottery. It's no wonder she always asks Brain to stop whenever they pass by an arts and crafts shop._

_He also learns that the pointy-nosed guy — his name is Sawyer, or as they call him, Racer — has a passion for running, so it seems. Mister Thick Eyelashes — he thinks his real name is Macbeth — is now known as Midnight, and he is hardly seen awake. It makes him wonder if Mister Thick Eyelashes is actually sleepwalking most of the time._

_Then, last but not least, there's Hoteye — he can't really remember Hoteye's real name. That guy is just obsessed with money._

_His friends — he supposes he can call them that — are quite a weird bunch. It's entertaining, though. He keeps a little pet snake that he's been fond of since meeting it in the park once, when the orphanage decided to give the children a field trip to the outside world. It doesn't bite though, and none of them are afraid of it._

_It dies a few months after they move in._

_._

He spends the whole night working on it. The problem is, he's never gotten better at it — he stopped making them for her after three months of her absence from his life — and the creation keeps falling apart. Figurine after figurine ends up in the overflowing dustbin. He receives a call from the friend nicknamed Midnight at, well, ironically _midnight_, but he ignores it for two obvious reasons.

One, Macbeth has this eccentric habit of waking up at midnight and calling up a random people to rant on and on about how nobody's awake at 'this time of day' — technically, it should've been night. Their group of friends have learnt to ignore the midnight calls.

Two, he doesn't care.

He's not going to let anybody ruin this.

.

When he's finally done, he looks at it wearily and smiles a little before falling asleep.

.

_It's just a normal day._

_Sawyer is shooting his mouth off about how he bested some jerks from his class while Richard is making his usual proclamations about love and money. Midnight's sleeping in a corner, not listening to a word that the two friends he's sandwiched in between are speaking. Imitatia is uninterested as always and Jackpot's bouncing around noisily._

_She looks at him with a certain glint in her eye and he feels uneasy at once, though he doesn't show it. He shifts in his seat slightly so that he can see her better — by that, he means that he can stop looking at her through his peripheral vision and look at her properly with his only eye. Promptly, she stands up, the chair pushed backwards with little noise and walks towards him._

_ "__What?" he glares, the iciness in his tone thick._

_ "__Come with me," she says simply, grabbing his wrist firmly as she strides towards the exit of Imitatia's lodging._

_Once outside, she _demands_ in a very authoritative voice,_

_ "__Go out with me."_

_He blinks before her request — _command_ — starts sinking in. When it does, though, he isn't elated. He's furious._

_He storms away without giving her an answer because it _just isn't fair_. He doesn't want to be the rebound, the one she asks out when the previous guy fails. She's come to see every guy she dates as some toy, hasn't she? Sooner or later she's going to dump him and move on. Her words lack sincerity. It's evident she doesn't give on iota about his feelings. He's just like them — just another toy to play with and break and then toss into the thrash when she's satisfied._

_He doesn't want this._

_This isn't what he wished for._

_God has a sick sense of humour._

_._

He curses his horrible luck.

.

Laxus visits him the following day in the middle of a thunderstorm. He's going through his collection of poorly-made figurines when there's the sound of loud knocking on his door. _Which person in their right mind would go out in a storm like…_His train of thoughts on this particular subject stops when he sees the visitor.

_Oh yeah. Laxus Dreyar._

"How's Wendy?" he asks, letting Laxus in and closing the door behind him. He briefly watches the sparks fly from his Sound Pods as he answers.

"According to flame-brain, she could be better," the bulkier man shrugs, crashing down onto the couch. He catches sight of the empty box lying in a corner of the room. "Hey, what's that?"

He hesitates to reply.

"Something."

Laxus grunts and scolds, "Quit being so damn vague." He lumbers over and picks up the box before realising it's empty. "Oh. Why didn't you say so?"

"It was _supposed_ to have something inside."

"What?" his cousin asks while tearing off the wrapper over the wooden chopsticks—_when did he even get the cup ramen and chopsticks and God, it's even cooked!_ Looks like he wasn't paying as much as attention as he'd like to think.

"Porcelain angel." Then, as an afterthought, "Won it from a game of bingo."

Laxus nods and chows down, slurping on the soup noisily.

"Her, huh?" He decides that his cousin is more perceptive than it seems. "Angels, demons…" Then, suddenly, he stands up and announces, "I'm full."

He catches the meaning behind his previous sentence and smirks knowingly.

"The German girl, huh?"

"Half," Laxus snarls, tossing the empty cup and used chopsticks into the uncleared bin. "Geez, take out your thrash, man."

He snorts and rolls his eyes.

"Yeah. Later."

Laxus raises a hand and strolls out of the house into the thunderstorm as if it's nothing. To any other person, his cousin would seem crazy but it's a normal occurrence for him and nothing new. He shuts the door (while scowling) and makes a mental note to clear the bin.

.

_Many years down the road, they forge strong bonds with each other. Brain is a relatively nice guy, he supposes, but Brain says he can be a scary person, and those who have witnessed the other side of him named it Zero. None of them have really seen it though. Perhaps adopting and taking care of them was part of some therapy to keep Zero under control? There are many possibilities._

_Brain is incredibly smart, he supposes, if he is qualified for homeschooling._

_He snorts. _As if. _It's simply the messed up society. He guesses that it's slightly better now, but it still isn't that great, not that he really cares. He's not as vulnerable as he was when he was a child. He's almost an adult now._

_Hoteye turns out to be the most intelligent of them all, while he struggles constantly like everyone else. He remembers that she often said his work was tasteless, not that it made much sense. She has a mean side too, he finds out. _Just like all of us._ He smiles wickedly._

_._

He finally takes a look at the calendar again. It's already into July, which means he should expect _a lot_ of trouble from his loud and overly-cheerful cousins — well, to be fair, it's only Natsu and Sting — as well as the party maniac Jackpot.

And unfortunately for him, he accidentally lets slip to Erigor, who in turn tells Sawyer, that he has lost his phone. No doubt the pointy-nosed guy will be bugging him for ages.

Today it's Rogue that turns up at his doorstep with his feline companion — dressed in a frog costume, not to mention, that makes him wonder if the cat is some kind of animal cosplayer — without his closest cousin-cum-friend Sting though. His expression is solemn as always and it irritates him — _as always._

"I thought you might want to have a little warning that the party Natsu-san and Sting have planned…is a little overboard." Rogue's eyes narrow into slits. "Gajeel-san is singing."

He smacks his forehead and groans, his other hand never leaving the doorframe.

"Damn it. Worst idea _ever_."

Rogue stiffens under his robe and tugs the collar unconsciously.

"I suppose."

There's a period of silence — because they've never really been close — before he speaks up again, this time with a devious plot in mind.

"So…" he purposefully stretches the word. "…anyone you like?"

Rogue's face flushes red instantly and he laughs, throwing his head back against the couch. The dark-haired man scowls slightly, but otherwise maintains his usual expression while Frosch stares at a butterfly flitting past his window. _Stupid butterfly._

"What kind of question is that?"

He laughs again and takes the beer bottle off the table, taking a huge gulp. Rogue watches silently before turning on his heels.

"I'll be taking my leave."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he replies, waving a hand dismissively as he places the bottle back on the table. When he hears the door creak shut, he sighs and plays with the torn and tattered pieces of the couch's fabric mindlessly, thinking.

.

The days pass by slowly and his birthday creeps closer. He doesn't want to know what his cousins and friends have planned for him.

_What if they decide to combine? Oh God, that'll be hell!_ He grimaces at the possible disaster — though the former's party is bound to be ruined. Jackpot's parties, at least, have some _fun_ —_ if that's what you'll call it _— in them, unlike his cousins' which is just pure torture, unless there are some sane people to keep them in check.

The invitation comes a couple of days right before his birthday, if you can really call it an invitation. To Jackpot, it's simply a slip of paper with the words '_Birthday Party. Mandatory Attendance_' and the details on the other side (though it's unnecessary). Oh, and not to mention excessive underlining under 'mandatory attendance'.

It ends up in the thrash, like it does every year since…

He doesn't want to think any further.

.

The day before his birthday, he decides to go through his little collection stored away in one of the guest rooms — it's become more of a storeroom, really. Most of them are dusty, especially the older ones, but the masterpiece is still there, sitting delicately on the tabletop. Cracking into a rare smile, he traces a finger over its head tenderly.

There's a hollow feeling in his stomach that doesn't feel quite right.

He draws his hand away from it and looks at the others, arranged in a crooked line on the shelf above. Left to right, each one looks better than the next. Right to left, each one looks worse than the next. She loved to do this.

He's scolding them both the same thing now.

_Liar, liar, liar._

He doesn't want to admit that he's a liar too.

.

It's the dreaded day.

Apparently, Jackpot is paranoid because first, he receives a call from Erigor _at two a.m._, then Richard personally comes up to his doorsteps and knocks on the door for a good three minutes until he comes to answer the door _because he absolutely refuses to wake up at five._

It's getting on his nerves.

The worst part is that _his cousins actually collaborated with his friends._

It honestly could've been a _lot_ better, and his eye is twitching rapidly at the prospect of having to sit through this hellhole of a party the whole day. Gajeel ushers him — _shoves him roughly_ — to the only chair set in front of the stage in Jackpot's basement — _damn, that guy's rich!_ — while the others 'prepare'. He has a bad feeling about this.

But he looks around, in the dark, dark room and realises how lonely and empty it is _without her._

_._

_Don't pretend._

_Lies._

Her words still haunt his dreams, lingering even in the morning when he wakes up from the aftermath of the party (thankfully, Jackpot planned the most of it).

"Are you okay?" Wendy asks, looking quite concerned.

He opens his mouth to respond but shuts it, not knowing what will come out.

_Truth or lie?_

_Another lie wouldn't hurt._

"I'm fine."

.

_They move out of Brain's apartment and start living their new lives, although they keep in touch very often. They slowly lose out of touch with Brain though, and Sawyer — formerly known as Racer — claims that Brain no longer lives in their old house three years later._

_Then the news of Brain's arrest comes out._

_Oh. Turns out he became a criminal. Looks like the therapy didn't work — if it ever existed._

_._

He staggers home before anyone else other than Wendy wakes up, groaning. He briefly remembers that _she_ wasn't there — she's probably mad. Taking a glance at the number of messages left on his answering machines, he supposes she'll be calling again today.

But that's beside the point.

He almost misses it because it's placed oh-so-conveniently out of the way on his doormat — well, he wouldn't have bothered to get one but it was a _practical_ birthday present from Macbeth. At first, he almost mistakes it for _the box_ because all boxes look the same, don't they? Then, he takes a closer look and realises that it's not.

There's no address or stamp or whatever nonsense on the box. It's just a box. _A plain old box with something inside._ He cocks his head in confusion. He doesn't remembering buying anything online recently, so it must be a present from someone. Someone who wasn't at the party.

_And that someone must've brought the present to my doorstep,_ he muses as he takes it in and shuts the door, all before sitting down on the couch like he always does and contemplating whether to open it. _Who the hell sent this?_

_Who would take the trouble of bringing it here when they can just post it? It wouldn't kill to spend a little money, right?_ He wonders as he tears open the box. What's inside surprises him to the point that it takes two minutes before he snaps out of his reverie and actually picks it up from the sea of styrofoam.

When he does, though, he sees the card below. If you can call it a card.

There's a simple '_happy birthday_' scrawled neatly in black ink on one side and an arrow indicating that he should look at the back of the card. He sets the item on the table and flips over the card.

His eyes bulge out of their sockets when he reads the words.

_I remember you loved snakes._

He would recognise that handwriting anywhere.

_That explains the choice of gift,_ he swallows as he blinks and takes a long stare at the figurine, examining the snake curled up around the tree trunk and branch. It looks real.

She was always a good potter.

A smile graces his lips as he takes the figurine and puts it next to his masterpiece.

_One day._

_._

He smirks excessively for the next few days.

.

It's almost Christmas now, and his smirk has faded away halfway through the months to the festive season. After that special gift, she hasn't shown her presence around town or to their group of friends — _former_ for her, he notes.

His heart is still smiling though — as sappy as it sounds — because at least he knows she still remembers him.

.

_Help me, God. I'm dying,_ he groans mentally as he's being forced to watch Jackpot dance around crazily, throwing sweets into the air (he's never had a sweet tooth). The worst part about this is, Sawyer hates sweets just as much as he does and _keeps on dumping the ones he gets to him._

What's so bad about it, you ask.

Sawyer _always_ ends up getting away with it.

He contemplates throwing the sweets on the floor, but that'll just make Jackpot angry and cause a _huge unnecessary _commotion which Macbeth will not appreciate. His cousins and their overly-cheerful (he feels like this isn't the first time he's described them as this) friends are partying on the other side of the humongous mansion, which reminds him _again_ that Jackpot's loaded.

He snorts as he gulps down the whole glass of fruit punch.

"Do you want to join us?" she asks nicely.

"No," he answers, turning to Richard. "Oi, I just remembered, did you actually win anything from the bingo?"

"I did," Richard hums happily, before frowning. "Unfortunately, the prize was lousy. It was a—"

_—__if he says it was a porcelain angel I'll beat him up right here right now—_

"—movie ticket to the latest horror movies. You all _know_ I hate horror movies," Richard scowls. "Thankfully, Macbeth digs them so I gave it to him."

_Figures_, he holds back a laugh and waves a hand at Jackpot, who notices him immediately and bounces over cheerily.

"Refill?" he nods and Jackpot's off to the buffet table — _he's rich, he's stinking rich —_ and he briefly sees a flash of bluish-white hair — _oh God, it's her, she's coming this way! I sound absolutely pathetic. _"Er, go away for a moment," he tells the lady beside him. This needs some skill _without_ pressure, because she just looks so much like—

She regards him carefully, the glass of fruit punch in hand. Jackpot passes by and literally throws the glass at him, but he catches it, thanks to all the 'practice' from previous parties. She's taking her time again, just like before.

"I heard," she says simply, taking a drink from her glass.

He raises an eyebrow questioningly.

"How the hell did _you_ know?"

She shrugs indifferently, relaxing her shoulders.

"She called, for the first time in a few years. Said something about you."

He nearly drops the glass. She rolls her eyes and takes another sip before scolding, "Don't be so shocked, for God's sake…"

"What'd she tell you?"

Closing her eyes briefly, she answers lazily, "Just the gift. I don't know what it is." She opens her eyes again and cocks her head to one side. "I suppose you've received it?"

"I did," he swallows slowly. "And?"

"I was just asking," she scoffs, before pointing at the empty chair next to him. "Could I sit?"

"Feel free."

Nodding, she sits down next to him, finishing up her glass of fruit punch. He does the same, feeling a little awkward for the first time in his life.

"All those years ago…were you shocked?"

He blinks at her for a few seconds before understanding and replying, "I guess."

She laughs drily, stretching her legs out.

"The world's unfair like that." A light smirk appears on her face. "Go enjoy the party, _Cobra_. It isn't fun sitting in one corner sulking." That said, she stands up and walks back to the other side of the room to join her friends, and it so happens that two of his cousins are pining after her (he laughs).

He sees more and more of her in her sister every time they meet.

.

_Macbeth finds Michelle — nicknamed Imitatia — seven years later, and she sort-of integrates into their group without much hesitation. She always keeps to herself though. There's also Klodoa, who refers to himself as Jackpot, who joins the group shortly after Brain's arrest — he's definitely the lively one._

_Klodoa claims to be Brain's former godson. He refuses to tell them why he's no longer Brain's godson though, and none of them push it when they see that he's really upset about it. He's still curious though._

_Erigor joins them a little while after Imitatia too, and this guy's nicknamed Grim Reaper. Well, their names are getting more creative._

_After a few days, he concludes that Imitatia is basically a nearly emotionless weirdo — well, all of them are weirdos — while Jackpot is too cheerful for his own good. He's not the only one who thinks that way, because Richard — formerly Hoteye — tells him that straight in the face, not that Jackpot really cares. And Erigor, oh God, he's just creepy sometimes._

_He has to admit that they become a closely-knitted group in the end._

_._

"You've been acting weird lately," Imitatia says, swallowing the cracker. "What's wrong?"

"Never thought you were one to care."

Imitatia harrumphs and walks away, joining in another conversation — though she hardly speaks and prefers to listen. He catches her stony gaze. There's a word flashing past her eyes dangerously, yelling at him.

_Fault. Fault. Fault._

Her eyes turn and her lips curve upwards into a smile directed at her friends — _his polar opposite cousins_ — as her body shifts to face them, away from him. Cocking his head backwards, he glares at the lights and narrows his eyes at the blank air.

He tries to ignore the words her eyes spoke, the ones hanging silently in the air, buried by the noise of the party.

.

The clock ticks to twelve and everybody cheers — well, mostly his cousins and their rowdy bunch of friends. He's heard that Sawyer has some affiliations with them too, which is probably one of the reasons why Jackpot's invited them, with the excuse of 'the more the merrier'. Not to mention the presence of Mister Red Tattoo Over Left Eye and his two — measly, he adds in — companions.

Among all the cheer, he smiles a little too because _he has to_. Some people decide to go out of the house to play in the snow, which is incredibly childish if you asked him. He opts to simply join the group that's moved up to the first floor to sit by the window and watch the snow fall.

Surprisingly, he likes watching the snow. It's white.

_Almost like her. But not her._

.

He leaves the house early in the morning with Jackpot yelling behind him, _"Don't forget to come back later!"_, followed by the sound of party poppers. Somehow, he's half-expecting a present to pop out at his doorstep when he approaches his house, but there's nothing.

_Disappointment._

Sighing, he takes out his keys and enters his house, contemplating if he should take a nap or a bath first. _Meh, I'll bathe._ Without a second thought, he barges into his room and grabs a towel — the _only_ towel — on his bed, crashing into the bathroom.

Later, when he's preparing to go back to Jackpot's party, he finds something under his mat.

It's a note.

_Sola Tree, Magnolia, noon_

There's no signature, but he knows who it is and grins.

Things are finally turning out right.

.

Magnolia is quite a distance away from his house, so it takes a good half hour before he reaches the town _four_ of his cousins reside in. He's heard tales of the Sola Tree from them, so he's pretty sure he knows what it is. _Big hint — it's. A. Tree._

There's a figure under the tree.

He inhales sharply.

_It's her._

.

For a moment, he's frozen. He can't believe that it's her. Part of him is yelling at himself for being a fool, because that isn't her, but he wants to believe, to indulge in whatever he can salvage of her.

Then, her voice nearly breaks him.

"Erik."

He swallows and tries to ignore his thumping heart. His hands shove further into his coat pockets and he grunts, acting nonchalant. She wears her usual expression — a look of serenity and indifference, what she calls tasteful.

"Did you like my present?" she asks, and he notes the cautious edge in her voice, as if she's treading on eggshells.

He nods and replies, "It's nice. It's always been nice."

"It has, hasn't it?" she grins ever-so-slightly, pushing her cheekbones up. "I assume you've met my sister?"

"Never got her name." He tries to hold his gaze. She's making it seem so easy and making _him_ feel incompetent.

She cocked her head, a disapproving look set on her face. "Lazy asshole. You haven't changed a bit, huh, _Erik_?" she emphasises his name on purpose.

He frowns and sneers, "Oh, and _you_ haven't, _Sorano_?"

"Tasteless as always," she comments airily, looking up to the sky. "Ah, the weather's pretty good today, isn't it? How's Klodoa's party?"

"He started calling himself Jackpot after Brain got arrested, remember?" he answers, feeling at ease all of a sudden. "His party's fine. Everybody's going over-the-board as usual. Invited my cousins and their bunch of friends too, even though we were enemies half an eternity ago."

A laugh escapes her and she asks disbelievingly, "You're joking, right?"

"Nope," he smirks.

"Those guys are _way_ too cheerful and full of…" she cringes as if she's about to say something disgusting. "…goody-goodness. Too tasteful, if you ask me."

"That's funny, I've never heard you complain that something's too tasteful before."

She scowls at him playfully, taking a step closer. "Like you _oh-so-politely _pointed out, I've changed, I suppose."

"I'm smart, aren't I?" he declares arrogantly, relaxing his shoulders before tensing them again. "So, how've you been lately? Your sister said you called recently."

"I did. I've been fine. Switching jobs often, though, because apparently my bosses don't understand the meaning of tasteful."

He rolls his eyes. "Your expectations are too high. Set the bar lower, damn it. You're never going to get a proper job at this rate."

Snorting, she looks him up and down and taunts, "And what are _you_ working as?"

"Humph, I got a job at _the _Crime Sorcière, _thank you very much_," he wriggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly at her, enjoying the shock on her face.

"How did a moron like you get a job there?"

He shrugs and explains lazily, "I suppose it was Richard, plus some of my cousins. My boss knows two of my cousin's closest friends, apparently. And that person is friends with the other cousins. Complicated stuff that I don't give a shit about."

"That's so like you."

"It is."

"Do you like my present?" she turns to face him, a look of solemnity painted on her face.

He blinks and thrusts out his hands in exasperation, "What? You don't believe me? It's awesome, and—" he remembers something and his face lights up (slightly) at once. "—oh yeah, I got something for you!"

Now it's her turn to blink at him. "Something for me?" she repeats hesitantly, as if she's trying to figure out if he's joking around with her — even though he's always been more of the serious type. Her hair — now a lot longer than years ago — flutters around in the wind and he thinks it's _beautiful._

"Yeah," he mutters, taking it out slowly. "Wait for it."

"What, you're going to propose to me?" she questions in a flat, humourless tone.

He chuckles. "In your dreams."

When she sees it, she's too shocked for words, he's sure. If he had not been restraining himself, he would've laughed out loud at the surprised, caught-off-guard look that she _never_ wears. She's always calm, collected and never fails to maintain the 'so-what' kind of look on her face.

He savours the moment.

"This…is pretty," she murmurs, turning it around so she can see all the details. "What's it called? I…I never seen anything like it before…"

A little embarrassed, he rubs the back of his head and says slowly, "Well…I came up with it, actually." _This is pretty._ A compliment she would _never_ use. Over her dead body.

"…I love it," she concluded, looking at him straight in the eyes, a ghost of a smile on her delicate features. "Thank you. It…you must have taken a long time to make it."

"Believe me, I did," he muttered under his breath, trying to put as much hate into each word as possible as he averted his eyes and glared at the grass next to him, next to his feet.

A full smile graces her lips.

"Thank you."

His expression softens.

"You're welcome."


End file.
